BCS helps develop hospital data management standard

BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, is working on developing a new hospital data management standard for the UK.

Antony Savvas
May 4, 2012

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BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, is working on developing a new hospital data management standard for the UK.

The BCS has joined forces with HIMSS Analytics Europe to collaborate on the Electronic Medical Records Adoption Model (EMRAM) project.

HIMSS Analytics currently collects data from hospitals and other healthcare delivery organisations across 25 countries worldwide. EMRAM is an eight-stage model (stages 0 to 7), which classifies an institution’s level of IT adoption.

So far, 68 stage 7 hospitals have been identified globally, with stage 7 being a hospital that uses a fully digitised, virtually paperless environment that can exchange data with other organisations.

Matthew Swindells, chair of BCS Health, said: “The EMRAM model will enable hospitals to measure their progress in the implementation of health IT and benchmark themselves against the rest of the NHS and internationally.

"This is particularly important as the NHS moves from the top down direction of NHS Connecting for Health to local decision making."

A number of hospitals, covering the acute and mental health sectors are being recruited to assist on the project, and a steering committee including representatives from the Department of Health Informatics Directorate, Intellect, the Royal College of Physicians and the NHS Commissioning Board has been set up.